Month: March 2014

This is the Saddest “We Sold for $8 Million” Post I’ve Ever Read

Readmill was a fantastic app for reading and discovering new things to read. I’ve enjoyed the small amount of time I spent in the app and am sad it’s going away. The “epilogue” post from their site after the Dropbox acquisition for 8 million is a hard read for fans but the stats below tell a good, but brief, story:

Readmill’s story ends here. Many challenges in the world of ebooks remain unsolved, and we failed to create a sustainable platform for reading. For this, we’re deeply sorry. We considered every option before making the difficult decision to end the product that brought us together.

via Readmill Epilogue – Readmill.

There’s a Reason Why Boring Interfaces Like Reddit Engage Crowds

People visit sites repeatedly because they can do things about things they care about. Here’s a great answer on the topic of why Reddit has such high engagement with people across a variety of backgrounds, age groups, interests, and ideologies despite its rather “ugly” interface:

Read Quote of Oliver Emberton’s answer to reddit (website): Why is reddit so famous despite such a boring interface? on Quorahttp://www.quora.com/widgets/content

In other words Function > Form in most cases (if you’re looking for visitors interested in more than the pretty shingles on your shop).

Link Rot

I’m extremely interested in the digital dark age we’re producing, especially when it comes to link rot…

Eight years later, the site still exists, essentially frozen in time. That provides an interesting window into the phenomenon of “link rot,” or hyperlinks that used to work but now point to dead pages. Our analysis found that 22% of the Million Dollar Homepage’s pixels now fail to load a webpage when clicked.

via The Million Dollar Homepage still exists, but 22% of it has rotted away – Quartz.

Clear My Calendar for December 18-19, 2015

Redeem us from the prequels, Disney…

Star Wars: Episode VII will release in theaters on December 18, 2015.

It has also been confirmed that Star Wars: Episode VII is set about 30 years after the events of Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, and will star a trio of new young leads along with some very familiar faces. No further details on casting or plot are available at this time.

via Star Wars: Episode VII Set to Roll Cameras May 2014 | StarWars.com.